Lucas emitted an incredulous whoop. ‘That’s what I love about you, Heidi, darling, you just don’t hold back. You shoot from the hip. Pow – pow – pow.’ He got to his feet as he spoke, firing an imaginary pistol round the room with such abandon that his chair toppled backwards, landing with a crash on the wooden floor. ‘Yes, oh sweet one, my father was a stinking, unfaithful, vile alcoholic, who, for a couple of decades or so, succeeded in ruining the lives of many people: mine, his mistress’s, and my poor mother’s included. As I believe I confided in you during our courting days, I have had to build something of a fortress over the years in order to keep him out… a fortress that some have found hard to cope with… but not you. To you, I have opened myself utterly. And so, to attack me for a measly celebratory glass of fizz or two when we have been apart so long…’ He stopped, tracking Heidi, who had been backing away from him, edging round the table, carefully stepping over the chair and going into her kitchenette, visible from the table via a hatch in the wall. Keeping her eyes on his, she tipped the bottle over the sink.

His face went rigid and then collapsed. ‘It was decent stuff, and wouldn’t keep, that’s why…’

‘I do not like you when you drink, Lucas.’

‘But I love you,’ he croaked, deflated suddenly, his eyes shiny with emotion.

Heidi shook the empty bottle for the last few drops – there had only been a glassful left anyway. ‘I do not want any more food. I was not hungry actually.’ She spoke in a monotone. ‘I only ate not to hurt your feelings. Now I am going to make myself a peppermint tea, and think maybe you should leave—’

‘No,’ he groaned, already staggering round into the kitchen. ‘Please, no. Forgive me, forgive me, I’m an arse. I do not deserve you. But I shall. I promise I shall. Just give me the chance, darling Heidi…’ He fell to his knees at her feet, sobbing like a child as he clasped her legs. ‘I’ll do anything you ask, anything. Ich liebe dich… ich liebe dich…’

Heidi held herself stiffly. ‘Have you lied to me, Lucas, ever? About anything?’

‘No, no, no. Never.’

‘Now is your chance, Lucas. If you have anything to tell me, it is now.’

‘I have nothing to tell you, except that I love you, and always shall.’

Heidi had looked down at his hair, sprouting from the crown in its neat thick boyish spirals. For several seconds she had looked rather than touched, fighting down the overpowering, frightening sense of meeting him for the first time. Of seeing him. A broken version of the person she had fallen in love with.